The First Step

An introductory post...

As I write, the groceries are priced and put away, Nessa is happily playing with her new toy (I had to! I lost her old mousies in the move), and my first meal of this insanity is bubbling on the stove. We—and by we I mean I—are having Macaroni and Cheese with hot dogs. A favorite choice of four-year-olds everywhere.
My insanity? I've decided to monitor what the food I eat costs each day. My beginning goal is to spend less than $6 per day on everything that I eat and drink. From what I've done today, I imagine that this goal is hardly lofty (in fact, many people all over the world eat for far less than this. I have no illusions to be broken on that front).
The problem that I face—the reason that the goal is rather high—is that, regardless of how long I have been buying food for myself, I still have no idea what groceries cost. I only know that I need to spend less on food.
To start us off, I would like to begin with some of the details about myself that will effect the money that I will spend on food each month.

• My job affords me the opportunity to never need to pay for bread or bagels...or soda.
• I also get a really nice discount when I work.
• I've decided that anything bought "pre-move" (pm) will not count toward the totals at the end of each day.
• I have the majority of a 50lb. bag of rice left over from before the move.
• I DO clip coupons. It's cathartic.
• I DO NOT always buy the product on the coupon. If the store brand has a similar product that is cheaper, I will generally purchase that to save myself a little money.
• One of my vices is eating take away. I love to sit down with good friends and good food. I still have not figured out how, exactly, I'm working this into my food budget, but I will find a way!

Those are just some of the ways that my food bill will be a little less or that I already save money.
So, my goals for this project of mine are to, at the beginning, keep my food spending to less than $6 per day. That gives me approximately $2 per meal. From there, I would, if possible, like to cut the amount of money that I spend on food in half. Instead of $180 per month, I would like to spend less than $90. This, I think, is entirely possible. Most of the world lives on less.